GILBERT'S POTOROO - AUSTRALIA'S MOST ENDANGERED MAMMAL

Welcome to the Website of Gilbert's Potoroo Action Group

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Gilbert's Potoroo is a small marsupial teetering on the brink of extinction. Found naturally only in dense scrub on a rugged, windswept headland thrusting out into the Southern Ocean, its numbers were so low that a chance event like a bushfire or a drought could have pushed the species into extinction.

First discovered in 1840 by naturalist John Gilbert and recorded again only a few times over the next 40 years, this small rat-kangaroo was thought to be extinct since the late 1870s until rediscovered in 1994 at Two Peoples Bay near Albany, on the South Coast of Western Australia.

It is estimated there are only 30 to 40 animals in the only known wild population, with an additional 90 to 100 animals in two translocated conservation colonies.This limited population means that critically endangered Gilbert's Potoroo is the world's rarest marsupial and Australia's rarest mammal.

Gilbert's Potoroo Action Group is a not-for-profit community group, hoping to help
save Gilbert's Potoroo from extinction. On our website you can find out about the history, ecology and
conservation of Gilbert's Potoroo together with information about our group and links to other sites of
interest. We hope that you find our site informative and that you might be inspired to help us to help Gilbert's
Potoroo.

The information on this website relating to Gilbert's Potoroo has been reviewed by Dr Tony Friend, DPaW's
Principal Research Scientist in charge of the Gilbert's Potoroo Recovery Program. Tony is also a member of Gilbert's
Potoroo Action Group.